Walking Tour of Greenbelt, Maryland

Art Deco
Weekend

Agenda

Area Tour

Dinner

Fallingwater

Fashion Show

Greenbelt

Hotel

NYC Bus

Tickets

Art Deco Weekend

Although Washington has many "traditional" Art Deco and Art Moderne buildings, it also has its own version of the Art Deco style coined "Greco-Deco" by author James Goode. It signifies the fact that, although Washington and Federal architects, such as Nathan C. Wyeth, were aware of the Moderne movement in the 1930s and 1940s, they were also conscious of where they were. They wanted to stay in harmony with the classical and monumental aspects of Washington architecture and produce dignified buildings, but they also wanted to be up to date. Buildings with classical Greek columns are adorned with stylized aluminum panels and stunning Moderne torchieres. Often, interiors such as the New Deal murals at the Department of the Interior building provide stunning examples of the Art Deco style in what, on their exteriors, appear to be classical buildings.

Washington’s own John Joseph Earley developed the concrete slab as a form of art and several of his works will be viewed. Earley created intricate patterns, containing multiple colors, in concrete. Colored aggregates including natural stones, ceramics, and vitreous enamels were crushed and set in white cement. The small size and jagged edges of the aggregates results in their capturing and reflecting light from all directions. Earley was awarded an American Institute of Architects medal in 1936 for the colorful architectural concrete slabs he designed for Washington, D.C.'s Church of the Sacred Heart.

The tour of Washington Art Deco will cover over 100 structures in the Washington area, including Reagan National Airport's Historic Terminal A, now fully restored, 1100 New York Avenue (preserving the Greyhound Bus Terminal), the 1930s Kennedy-Warren Apartment complex, and the Hecht Company Warehouse. Both commercial and government Art Deco exteriors will be visited, along with selected interiors. Residential areas will also be seen including Art Deco apartment buildings along 16th Street and Connecticut Avenue and single family homes.

Walking tours of Greenbelt and Silver Spring, Maryland are also planned, including the recently restored interior of the Silver Theatre, now the home of the American Film Institute.

Order Tickets

Both Tours

• Members: $65 (ADSW members and Latrobe Chapter, SAH members)
• Non-Members: $80

Friday Tour: Bus tour includes box lunch

• Members: $50 (ADSW members and Latrobe Chapter, SAH members)
• Non-Members: $60

Saturday Tour: Walking tour of Greeenbelt, Maryland includes bus from and to Washington Plaza Hotel

• Members: $20 (ADSW members and Latrobe Chapter, SAH members)
• Non-Members: $25

Ticket sales for these tours have closed.

Join ADSW and pay the discounted member's price for your tickets. ADSW members enjoy many benefits. Membership costs $35 for singles or $50 for couples.

Silver Spring, Maryland

www.homestead.com/silverspringhistory
www.sshistory.org

A commercial and industrial building boom—largely of Art Deco-style structures—marked the coming of age of downtown Silver Spring in the mid-1940’s. The walking tour allows a glimpse of some of this past through these landmark buildings. The 20-year effort to save and restore pieces of an Art Deco legacy through preservation advocacy will be discussed. Among the sites to be visited:

• The Canada Dry Bottling Plant, designed in 1946 by Walter Monroe Cory, with yellow brick and glazed tile, glass block rotunda, curved corners, strip windows, and distinctive dual signage. The motto of New York City architect Walter Monroe Cory and his partner, brother Russell, was "Factories can be beautiful."
• The Tastee Diner, originally installed in 1946, built by the Jerry O'Mahoney diner company.
• The Silver Theatre and Silver Spring Shopping Center complex, an example of streamlined Art Deco architecture built in 1938, complete with soaring marquee tower. One of the best remaining examples of Art Deco cinema architecture in the Washington area. It was designed by John Eberson, "the dean of American Theater architects."

City of Greenbelt, Maryland

www.ci.greenbelt.md.us

The City of Greenbelt, now a National Historic Landmark, is the first community in the United States built as a federal venture in low-income housing and an experiment in both physical and social planning. Greenbelt was designed as a complete city, with businesses, schools, roads, and facilities for recreation and town government. It is one of three greenbelt towns envisioned by Rexford Guy Tugwell, friend and advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was created by the Resettlement Administration in 1935 under authority granted by the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act.

A planned community, it was noted for its interior walkways and underpasses that permitted residents to go from home to town center without crossing a major street; its system of inner courtyards; one of the first mall-type shopping centers in the United States; and for its cooperative institutions. Modeled after English garden cities of the 19th century, Greenbelt took its name from the belt of green forestland with which it was surrounded and from the belts of green between neighborhoods that offered easy contact with nature.

The architecture was streamlined in the Art Deco style—with curving lines, glass brick inserts in the facades of apartment buildings, and buttresses along the front wall of the elementary school. These buttresses create vertical lines framing a set of bas reliefs by WPA sculptor Lenore Thomas.

The first families, who arrived on October 1, 1937, to live in the original 885 residences found no established patterns or institutions of community life. Almost all were under 30 and considered themselves pioneers in a new way of life. Another 1,000 homes were added in 1941 to provide housing for families coming to Washington in connection with defense programs of World War II.

Kennedy-Warren Apartments

3133 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC
www.kennedy-warren.com

The Kennedy-Warren has been characterized as the finest Art Deco apartment building in Washington, DC. It was the first in the area to use aluminum extensively as trim on both the interior and exterior and the first in the nation to have a forced, natural-air cooling system. Occupying the corner of a park area on Connecticut Avenue adjacent to the National Zoological Park, the first section of the Kennedy-Warren was designed and completed (1930-31) by architect Joseph Younger. In 1935 a 200-unit addition, designed by Alexander H. Sonnemann, brought the total number of apartments up to 317. However, this still left the original design only two-thirds complete.

In 1987, Younger's original drawings were discovered, and in 1997 the owner decided to complete the building along the lines of those drawings. With slight adjustments to provide a number of balconies and more contemporary apartment layouts, the building has essentially been completed according to Younger’s design by the architectural firm of Hartman-Cox (2003-04). The lobby and other public areas are being restored to their former "Aztec-Deco" splendor.

For More Information

For more information, call ADSW at 202-298-1100 or send email to Art Deco Weekend coordinators Linda Lyons (llyons@adsw.org) or Jim Linz (jlinz@adsw.org).

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Created February 12, 2005; Modified Wednesday, April 27, 2005.